Team sent to Daanbantayan to investigate teacher's slay

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu Provincial Police Office has sent the members of Provincial Investigation and Detective Management Branch (PIDMB) to assist the police officers of Daanbantayan in the investigation into the case of a teacher who was killed last Sunday dawn.

Senior Supt. Erson Digal, director of CPPO, said the team, which was led by Insp. Ruben Cuizon, is tasked to solve the case as soon as possible. The suspects are still not identified until now.

 However, initial investigations revealed that the motive of the crime is robbery and not politically motivated.

Digal also instructed Daanbantayan police chief Chief Insp. Laurel Almirante to immediately apprehend the suspects.

The killing of Adan Medrano, 28, resident of Bogo City, happened just less than a week after Almirante assumed as the new police chief of the town.

The victim, who taught Physical Education at the Daanbantayan National High School, was a son of SPO4 Gibo Medrano of Bogo City Police Station.

 Police said the witnesses who were with Medrano during the incident alleged that the suspects even talked to the victim before he was shot, prompting them to theorize that the victim and the suspects knew each other.

Adan was allegedly on board a motorcycle with his two students, whom police identified as Harry Pitogo and Jake Sanchez, returning from a benefit dance when two men, who were on another motorcycle, overtook them and asked them to stop.

While on stop in the middle of the road, Medrano and one of the two men allegedly had a heated argument, although police did not make clear what the argument was all about.

But at the height of their altercation, the suspect suddenly pulled out a gun and declared a holdup.

Trembling with fear, one of the students, Jake Sanchez, handed over the bag of Medrano to the gunman but Medrano allegedly grabbed it back.

Angered by Medrano’s resistance, the man fired point blank at the teacher’s face, hitting him in the left eye and immediately fled from the place with his companion after seeing the victim crumpled to the ground.

From the empty shell police recovered at the scene, they determined that the gun used in the slaying had been a .45 caliber pistol.

The Daanbantayan teacher’s killing came 11 days after Romeo Duran, a Grade 6 teacher at Binlod Elementary School in Argao town

After learning the incident, the Department of Education in Cebu condemned the killing and expressed alarm that once again students have been physical witnesses to violence. — Gabriel C. Bonjoc/WAB    (FREEMAN NEWS)